Chapter 7: So What

Twenty minutes later, the front door slammed hard enough to rattle the picture frames on the stairs.

I was still at my desk.

"Malcolm!" Toby's voice carried up the stairwell, and it was not the sad voice from before. "Get down here!"

I took my phone off the charger and went down.

Toby stood in the middle of our front hall with his shoes still on, breathing hard.

His hair was flat on one side. His eyes were bloodshot.

My mother appeared in the kitchen doorway and stayed there with a dish towel in her hands.

"You played us," Toby said.

"I told you the truth at the airport."

"You told us you left the section blank!"

"At dinner you looked me in the face and said it."

He stabbed a finger at the stairs.

"You had that letter in your wallet the whole time!"

"It was in a textbook."

"Don't be smart!"

"Toby," my mother said quietly. "Lower your voice."

He didn't look at her.

"You knew," he said to me.

"You sat there at Rosie's and watched us."

"You ate your burger and let her cry on you, and you knew."

"I did."

"Then why didn't you say something?"

"Why would I? You were both so happy."

His face twisted.

I had seen Toby angry only once before, in seventh grade, over a vending machine.

It had lasted a minute, and he had apologized afterward.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Text From the Future: Dump Your Girlfriend from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.